Change we can believe in
Change // Reform // Collaboration
Change // Reform // Collaboration
Earlier this week, the Obama Administration celebrated 18 technology innovators as part of their “Champions of Change” initiative. White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, honoured these citizens for building applications on government data in order to improve life for their fellow citizens. The applications vary widely in scope, from helping citizens to solve local issues through collective dialog, through to informing parents of child-friendly destinations and helping asthma patients track the use of their medication.
The White House's website is hosting profiles of many of these innovators including:
Valerie Jarret, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, explained the Champions of Change initiative as 'highlighting Americans doing extraordinary things in their communities'.
For more, check Whitehouse.gov's series of blog posts from these champions:
Last week, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a first-of-its-kind open data law requiring San Francisco's City departments and agencies to post certain types of data sets to a publicly accessible portal at DataSF.org.
This cements progress made under an executive directive in 2009 and marks a significant expansion of San Francisco's Open Data policy.
Mayor Newsom said:
San Francisco once again demonstrates what it means to be on the cutting edge of government openness and transparency
By making data sets publicly available, we’re forging valuable public-private partnerships with app developers and making City services easier to access for our residents.
San Francisco’s open data policy builds on President Obama’s call for more open and transparent government. Newsom explained how this leadership, at the Executive level, is a guide for elected officials around the country:
President Obama’s leadership in pressing for easier access to government data should be a wake-up call to elected officials around the country. Open data is quickly becoming the gold standard of accountability and transparency that all citizens will come to demand..
I’m proud that here in San Francisco, we’re ahead of the curve on this important government 2.0 initiative.
At the Activate 2010 conference, organized by the Guardian, Nigel Shadbolt of data.gov.uk gave a talk on the latent power of government data and the drive to open it up . A video of that talk is now available on-line and contains interesting examples of the power of open data.
Earlier this month, the General Services Administration (GSA) held an Industry Day to discuss ways in which industry and newcomers could team up to offer contest services to government agencies. This forms part of the President Barack Obama’s call for government to be more open and participatory.
As part of this, GSA, in collaboration with ChallengePost, have created challenge.gov, a:
one-stop source for all the challenges and contest being offered across the government
The website will be dedicated to hosting federal agency competitions to showcase innovation. GSA said in a statement:
Challenge.gov is a new platform that allows federal agencies to post challenges, and at the same time, allows the public to find federal challenges. It's now open to federal agencies to create challenges or showcase challenges from other platforms.
Bev Godwin, Director for New Media and Citizen Engagement explained the reasons behind the initiative:
GSA is taking citizen engagement to next level of co-creation by tapping the American spirit of creativity. We are accelerating new ideas and innovation as President Obama asked government to engage citizens to accelerate innovation and solve tough problems.
In the video below, Godwin and ChallengePost founder Brandon Kessler talk about the upcoming public launch of Challenge.gov and the potential of grand challenges to improve government efficiency and increase the speed of innovation.
For more on the launch of the site follow Bev Godwin (@BevUSA), and @challengegov on twitter, or check http://challenge.gov.
(H/T FCW.com)
John O'Leary interviews John Strigel, one of the architects of the District of Columbia's City's Data Warehouse initiative, on the impact of making the city's data available to citizens in real time.
Over 320 raw data feeds - in multiple different formats - is made available through the http://data.octo.dc.gov. This was the centerpiece of the the seminal "Apps for Democracy" initiative; an open source competition for the creation of services based on open government data. It has since become a template for open data competitions around the world.
Strigel's advice for other cities thinking of getting opening up their data:
For more on the intervew, check From Data to Transparency in D.C.
(H/T @governing).
Jennifer Bell's post on Canada's VisibleGovernment blog describles a great speech given earlier this year by Suzanne Legault, Canada's Interim Information Commissioner, to a Parliamentary Committe. The speech - described as a "blockbuster" - outlines 5 open government principles required to "lead the paradigm shift from reactive to proactive disclosure, and ultimately to open government".
The 5 priciples include:
Along with these principles Legault acknowledges the work done by municipalities and engaged citizens in creating practical applications from open government data:
In municipalities, there are a significant number of practical applications being developed by both the cities and citizens. For example, Edmonton, Nanaimo, Toronto and Vancouver, have mounted online data catalogues containing information regarding council meetings, fire and rescue response reports, garbage collection and public transit schedules and building permit statistics. Many of these, such as property searches and restaurant sanitation reports, are supported by online search engines that allow the public to retrieve and manipulate the data. Ottawa is also moving forward to capitalize on new technologies to expand its service offerings.
It is at the grassroots level where many of the most innovative initiatives are occurring. These initiatives are an indication of the types of information Canadians actually want. In a recent Globe and Mail article entitled “if you won’t tell us about our MPs, we’ll do it for you”, David Eaves, an internationally recognized open government guru, described new websites mounted by what he called “digital democratic activists”. He cited, as an example openparliament.ca, which enables the public to see what Members of Parliament say, explore how they vote, and search related press stories. Another example is howdidtheyvote.ca. This site provides a breakdown of Members of Parliament statistics, including the number of words spoken in a session, the frequency with which Members vote against their parties and Members’ attendance records.
Along with these Canadian efforts, Legault referred to ongoing open government initiatives in the UK, US and Australia as examples of international leadership in this area.
She ends with:
In 2010, democracy, government efficiency and national prosperity share the same core requirement. Citizens, experts and entrepreneurs must be able to easily access, interact with and reuse current and relevant public domain data. To quote from an excellent report compiled by Deloitte entitled Unlocking Government: How Data Transform Democracy:
Government leaders have before them an opportunity to combine the resourcefulness of online citizens and entrepreneurs with the power of factual data to more effectively achieve their mission. In an information-driven age, the ability of governments to seize this opportunity may ultimately determine whether a government fails or succeeds.
(H/T VisibleGovernment.ca)
Deloite Canada's recent report "Unlocking government: How data transforms democracy" combines information on how governments around the world are becoming more open, innovative and responsive through the release of data. Through this, and various other initiatives, they're seeking to empower citizens to work with government data to create applications and services to serve the public good.
The report describes how the relationship between government and citizens is undergoing fundamental change. Governments around the world are beginning to understand that through unlocking public data they can fuel new levels of performance. In many jurisdictions, data is now being viewed as a public asset and a right to be leveraged by citizens, businesses and communities.
The full report is available at http://www.deloitte.com/ca/government20, along with an easy to use website to navigate through the report contents. Along with this, they've released various short films which include Bill Eggers (joint author of If We Can Put a Man on the Moon) speaking about the importance of Open government.
The principle of open government
How governments can use social networks more effectively
How governments can be smarter in their decision-making
The full report is available at Unlocking Government (PDF).
Interesting video from MIT's Center for Future Citiv Media - The Future of Civic Engagement in a Broadband-Enabled World, a symposium hosted cooperation with the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Initiative (broadband.gov).
Moderator: Jerry Mechling, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Speakers:
Related post from Andrea Dimaio on the issue of capturing knowledge that people have on specific issues and utilising and incorporating it into government to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.
